“‘We offer,’ he says, ‘to France as a price of her secret aid, a secret treaty of commerce which will enable her to reap during a certain number of years after the peace, all the benefits with which we have for the last century enriched England, besides a guarantee of her West Indian Possessions according to our power.
“‘If this is rejected, Congress immediately will make a public proclamation and will offer to all nations of the world what I secretly offer to you to-day.... The Americans, exasperated, will join their forces to those of England and will fall upon your sugar islands—of which you will be deprived forever.’...
“Here, Sire, is the striking picture of our position. Your Majesty sincerely wishes to maintain peace. The means to conserve peace, Sire, will make the résumé of this memoir.
“Admit all the foregoing hypotheses and let us reason. This which follows is very important.
“Either England will have the most complete success in the campaign over the Americans; or the Americans will repel the English with loss; or England will adopt the plan of abandoning the colonies to themselves and separating in a friendly manner; or the opposition taking possession of the ministry, will bring about the submission of the colonies on condition of their being reinstated as in 1763.
“Here are all the possibilities brought together. Is there a single one which does not instantly bring upon us the war which you desire to avoid? Sire, in the name of Heaven, deign to examine the matter with me.
“First, if England should triumph over America, it can only be at an enormous expense of men and money, now the only indemnity which England will propose to make on her return, will be the capture of our sugar islands.... Thus Sire, it will only remain for you, the choice of beginning too late an unfruitful war, or to sacrifice to the most disgraceful inactivity your American colonies and to lose two hundred and eighty millions of capital and more than thirty millions of revenue.
“Second, if the Americans win, the moment they are free from the English, the latter in despair at seeing their possessions diminished by three fourths, will be still more anxious to indemnify themselves by the easy capture of our islands, and one may be sure that they will not fail in attempting it.
“Third, if the English imagine themselves forced to abandon the colonies to themselves, which is the secret desire of the king, their loss being the same and their commerce equally ruined the result remains the same for us.
“Fourth, if the opposition comes into power and concludes a treaty with the American colonies, the Americans, outraged against the French whose refusal to aid alone forces them to submit to England, menace us from to-day forth, to take away the islands by joining forces with the English....